Bible Strands
Jeremiah 51:58
This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Babylon’s thick walls will be leveled, and her high gates consumed by fire. So the labor of the people will be for nothing; the nations will exhaust themselves to fuel the flames.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD of Hosts speaks this declaration through the prophet Jeremiah. The message is given to the quartermaster Seraiah as he travels to Babylon with King Zedekiah in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign.
The words — חֹמוֹת (Cho.mot) means “walls of,” and עַרְעֵר ('ar.'Er) translates as “utterly demolish” or “level.” These terms specify the physical demolition of Babylon’s fortifications.
The thread — The motif of futile labor and breached fortifications runs through Habakkuk 2:13, Jeremiah 50:15, and Jeremiah 51:44. Each reference ties human exhaustion or idolatrous reliance to divine dismantling of prideful structures.
Why it lands — The text requires recognition that human effort to build or sustain oppressive systems yields no lasting reward. It demands acceptance that exertion against divine judgment ultimately consumes the exerters.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.
Cross-references
- Habakkuk 2:13 Is it not indeed from the LORD of Hosts that the labor of the people only feeds the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain?
- Jeremiah 50:15 Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the LORD, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her.
- Jeremiah 51:44 I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make him spew out what he swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even the wall of Babylon will fall.
- Jeremiah 51:64 Then you are to say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster I will bring upon her. And her people will grow weary.’” Here end the words of Jeremiah.
- Isaiah 45:1 This is what the LORD says to Cyrus His anointed, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, to disarm kings, to open the doors before him, so that the gates will not be shut:
- Psalms 127:1 A song of ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.
- Isaiah 65:23 They will not labor in vain or bear children doomed to disaster; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD—they and their descendants with them.
- Jeremiah 51:9 “We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Abandon her! Let each of us go to his own land, for her judgment extends to the sky and reaches to the clouds.”
- Jeremiah 51:30 The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds. Their strength is exhausted; they have become like women. Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze, the bars of her gates are broken.